Out of all proportion
by Kazuki Landen
Summary: An argument between Jim and Blair blows up into something that will threaten their friendship, and maybe even the partnership of Sentinel and Shaman. Not slash. Mainly HC. Rating probably too high, so don't be put off.
1. Attack on Blair

Angsty H/C

= - / _ = - / _= - / _= - / _= - / _= - / _= - / _= - / _= - / _= - / _= - / _= - / _= - / _= - / _

It'd been just over a year since Blair first moved in when we had our first massive, big time argument. We were at the end of a particularly tough case, where a cop had been badly injured and Sandburg had nearly caught a bullet.

It started with some trivial little thing, and then before I knew it he was yelling at me about he would never be accepted if Simon and I kept him wrapped up in cotton wool all the time, and I was yelling back that he needed our protection, goddammit!

Then, without even a thought, I hit him. Backhanded him right across his cheek, hard enough to throw him to the floor but not hard enough to break the bone, or even the skin – just about, anyway. I froze, just looked at him lying on the floor, his hands up on his face, touching the mark that was already forming, his breath coming fast and shallow.

Somehow I'd managed to split his lip; blood was trickling from the side of his mouth, running over his chin and onto the floor, dripping into a little puddle right there by the kitchen table.

The worst thing, though, wasn't the injury itself, it was what I could see in his eyes. It was fear, and pain, and loss, and something deeper than that, something more than fear, as though it wasn't just my hitting him again he was afraid of, but something else.

I turned away from him, leaning against the wall and covering my eyes with one hand, taking deep breaths to calm myself. When I looked back, Blair was gone, fled to his room, the door shut resolutely against me. I hadn't heard a damn thing.

The next morning, I woke up to the smell of scrambled eggs, cooking in the pan, along with bacon and toast. It'd been a while since Blair had done anything like that, but I didn't comment, not wanting to provoke another argument, and just quietly thanked him for the food.

He didn't eat anything, just gave me mine, went to his room, grabbed his backpack and left, telling me he'd be at the university all day and had stuff to do afterwards, so I wasn't to wait up.

I didn't realise until he had left that he'd carefully kept the bruised side of his face away from my sight, and that there was a stitch in his split lip. He must have fixed it up on his own, in silence – I know I would have heard him otherwise. I should've guessed he wouldn't ask me, but I should have offered to at least check it this morning. Dammit. Doing it himself must have hurt like a bitch.

He's so goddamned _stubborn_.

When I turned up at the station, people asked me where Sandburg was. Not just one person, but people. Every single fucking person in the entire fucking building asked me where the kid was. When Rafe asked me, I finally snapped, yelled at him, and at people in general, and really made sure that everyone kept the hell outta my way.

Even Simon left me alone – I guess he figured he'd leave me to stew and get myself over it. Or, as he muttered to himself, give me time to get out of my 'hissy fit'. If I hadn't have been so pissed off at the world, I would have laughed.

That night, late enough that even the dogs on the street had stopped their barking, I heard a shuffle at the door, the key turning in the lock, and the thud of a backpack being softly placed on the floor. There were the familiar sounds of Blair collapsing into bed after a late night, and I was finally able to slide into sleep.

When I awoke it was, for the second morning in a row, to the smell of frying bacon. Once I had woken up enough to appreciate _why_ I had bacon for breakfast, I was suddenly a hell of a lot less hungry.

By the time I had meandered downstairs, the plates were being slid onto the table, and Blair cautiously smiled at me.

I forced a grin back at him, and a cheery 'good morning' as I sat down to eat. The relief on his face was almost painful.

The cheek where I had hit him was already turning purple, and there was swelling, but not enough that I should be majorly concerned about. If it got any worse, I would take a closer look, but it wasn't really that bad. Still, it tore at me every time I had to look at him and saw it marring his face.

Fucking guilt trips.

Before we left the loft I hauled the pile of case folders I had brought home into my arms. They were all files on a family of dopers we thought were in on a murder, and they were damned heavy, as well as obscuring all view of the ground beneath my feet. As I picked up the keys to the truck, and turned away, my foot caught in something, and I was falling to the ground, the files going everywhere in an explosion of paperwork.

Avoiding serious harm, I clambered to my feet, checking my limbs for damage. There was none, barely a bruise, but the shock and adrenaline was already flooding though my system. When I looked for what had tripped me, all I saw was Sandburg's tattered old backpack, one strap still stuck out and the contents spilling out the top where it was been knocked over.

Spinning around, I glared at the kid, who had frozen by the kitchen table at the sight of me tumbling to the ground. He flinched, and seemed to be jolted back into motion again.

"Shit!" It was the first emotion I'd got out of him since I'd hit him, and I couldn't even tell what it was, it just seemed an explosive burst of shock, frustration, and fear.

Before I could stop myself, I was yelling at him, shouting like a drill sergeant, about what a dumb place to put his backpack, and then he was on the floor, frantically trying to pick up the papers and put them back in some sort of order. I helped, but every time our hands got near each other he would jerk back, and he refused to make eye contact.

There was a silent ride to the station, and a silent ride up the elevator. Today, few people spoke to me, and even to Sandburg, though he received several smiles, which he returned. No one seemed to notice just how badly his hands were shaking.

When he got called into Simon's office, I stood up to go with him, but Simon shook his head at me. "Not you, just Sandburg. Don't eavesdrop, either."

Blair stood up and walked through the bullpen, without exchanging a glance with me, or with anyone else. Even Rafe's bright grin did nothing the lift the dejection that seemed to hang around the kid. He looked smaller somehow, his body hunched in the way of convicted criminals, when they know the sentence is coming, but they haven't yet heard how bad it will be.

A reassuring grin and a pat on the arm from Rhonda helped him to pull his head up, his hair swinging back to reveal the bruise on his cheek. I hadn't noticed, until then, how hard he had worked to keep it hidden from everyone in the bullpen. No one bar Rhonda saw it now, and when she reached up to touch it he turned his head away, saying it was nothing.

She nodded, and watched him as he entered Simon's office, then turned to stare unerringly at my guilty face. I bent my head back to my paperwork, already feeling the red tide over my cheeks.

But just because I wasn't looking didn't mean I couldn't hear.

Simon seemed calm, relaxed, but worried. He was sat on his desk, far more informal than usual – I could hear his leg swinging slightly against the side of it. When Blair walked in, the swinging stopped, but the relaxed attitude remained.

Blair on the other hand was far more nervous; I could hear him wringing his hands and swallowing convulsively. His steps were short and slow, with none of his usual bounce. "Sir?"

"Sit, Blair. And drop the sir. For this meeting, I'm Simon, ok?"

"OK."

A sigh, from Simon. "What's going on, Blair? You have injuries I know you didn't get here at work, Jim spent all of yesterday acting like a bear with a sore head, and today you're… you're goddamned _quiet_! What the hell happened? And don't bother lying to me."

I could almost hear Blair flinch back as Simon's voice rose, and it was all I could do to stop from running in there and throwing myself on their mercy.

There was silence for a moment as Blair gathered himself; I heard several deep breaths and hoped they weren't the start of a panic attack.

"Me and Jim… we had an argument. It was my fault, Simon, I started it and wouldn't let it drop. I got mad, and ran into my room, fell over and hit the desk, and needed patching up. Jim's just mad because he blames himself. You know what he's like." I didn't need to see it to know it had happened – a shared look, a roll of eyes; it was the two of them sharing their knowledge of me. It's one of Sandburg's tactics to get people to believe him. People with things in common trust each other more. It works, too.

"I'm just being quiet because I've got a headache, and my lip makes talking sore. It's nothing to worry about, honest." I could almost hear the honesty radiating from his words. Sandburg's a professional at this; he doesn't even have to try, and boy was he trying.

"You're sure nothing's wrong?" Sandburg must have nodded, because Simon continued. "Alright then, you can go. But Blair… if anything happens, you need someone to talk to or a place to stay, just call me, ok?"

Maybe Sandburg's not as good as I thought he was.

Or maybe Simon's better than I knew he could be.

"Thanks for the offer, Simon. If I need to take it up, I will." Blair left Simon's office with a thoughtful expression on his face. He never caught me watching him, and was soon sat back down at his desk, still sorting out the files that had gone flying that morning.

= - / _ = - / _= - / _= - /

Once we got home that evening, Blair disappeared off to his room… taking his backpack with him. He didn't come out until I put dinner onto the table and called for him. We sat in silence for several minutes, Blair staring at his food as he ate.

When I finally broke the silence, he jumped, and his head shot up to stare at me with those wide blue eyes. I think he'd forgotten I was even there.

"So, how's Cassie?" Cassie was one of his students, and she'd been having problems with a boyfriend. Like most of Blair's female students, Blair was her first port of call when she needed to talk.

"She's ok." His head was back down, staring at his food as he moved it listlessly around his plate. "She split up with Kurt yesterday."

"Is that good?"

"I guess. She cried, though." Blair dropped his fork, and it hit his plate with a jarring clatter. "I'm not hungry, Jim. Sorry."

I shook my head. "Don't worry about it. I'll wash up. Go on, I'm sure you've got marking to do or something."

He nodded in a peculiarly marionette fashion, jerked his chair away from the table, and went to his room. Once again, the door was shut firmly.

Sighing, I threw the remainder of our dinners away and went to wash up. I could deal with Sandburg in the morning.

= - / _ = - / _= - / _= - /

It turned out, though, that I couldn't. When I got up, he had already left for the university. I read his short note – he had a class, apparently – with mixed feelings. On one hand, he was avoiding me, but on the other, he'd left a note for me, so it couldn't be all that bad.

I went to work without a second thought. I couldn't do anything, so why worry?

= - / _ = - / _= - / _= - /

At work, people kept asking me, "Where's Sandburg?" "What did you do with the short one?" "Where's the cheery half?"

Eventually, it pissed me off enough that I snapped at Megan. She scowled at me and marched off. Oops.

Mind you, you would have thought they'd get the idea about asking, by now.

When Simon hauled me into his office ten minutes later, I snapped at him too, until he told me to shut the hell up and sit down.

I sat. When Simon uses That Voice and tells you to jump, you just ask, "how high, sir?"

There was a moment of silence as he settled himself behind his desk, holding a cigar in one hand. "Jim, what have you done to the kid?"

When I started to speak, he held up a hand to stop me. "Don't give me any bull, either. I don't get it outta you, I'll make Sandburg tell me, and the state he's in at the moment, if glare at him he'll break."

Again, the silence, before I spoke. "I hit him. That's what the bruise is, on his cheek. And it split his lip."

Simon whistled. I got the impression it was for my benefit – he had already known, and just needed my confirmation. "Shit, Jim. Why'd you do it? He's acting like a kicked puppy, and it's making everyone miserable."

"Jeez, if I'd known that, I'd never have done it." The sarcasm seemed feeble, even to me. "I don't know, we were having an argument and it just… got to me."

"It 'got to you'? And that made you hit him?" Simon was disbelieving. He put the cigar down and clasped his hands. "Jim, Sandburg is precious to everyone in this building. We don't want to know he's been hurt, and by _you_. If anyone – particularly Megan or Joel – finds out about this, you're a dead man. You know that, right?"

I nodded. Oh, boy, did I know. "Ok then. So, go fix it." When I didn't move, Simon waved his hands at me. "Go on, out. And I don't want to see you back here without Sandburg, is that understood?"

"Sir."

I left the bullpen in a hurry, and pretended not to hear the sighs of relief and Joel's comment – "If Sandburg's not back tomorrow – how he should be – we're gonna give Jim hell, right?" The little chorus of 'right' from everyone in the bullpen sped me on my way.


	2. Attack on Jim

By the time I got to Rainier, I had a little speech all ready and waiting. Once I was standing outside the door to Blair's office… my pretty speech had gone clear out of my head.

Taking a deep breath – Blair says it's good for my blood pressure – I knocked on the door. There was a thud, and some muffled curse words, then a shout. "Give me a minute!" Some more muffled curse words, then the door was unlocked and slowly slid open as papers blocking it were forced to slide out of the way.

Sandburg's head peered round the door, and once he saw me his eyes, at first bright and curious, flicked nervously away to focus on the floor. "Jim. Listen, I'm uh… I'm completely swamped, man, so –", he gave a nervous laugh, which grated on me in it's wrongness. It was too forced, too careful, too harsh. Not Blair.

My stomach turned over as I realised this was exactly what I had done to him. I had turned him from a brave, quick thinking, weird scholar into this nervous recluse, with one single movement.

"No, Sandburg." I stepped forwards, pushing the kid backwards without even touching him – it was scary how smartly he moved out of the way once I approached. I wanted to back away, take the frightened look from his eyes, but Simon's words drove me on.

"Please. We need to talk."

He turned away, staring at the floor, at the piles of papers scattered there. I could hear his breathing, harsh in the silence, then suddenly he turned back, his eyes wild.

"_What_, Jim? What do we need to talk about? You got pissy, I argued, you hit me. That's all there is to it." He stared up at me, angry wide blue eyes burning into me.

I felt my own gaze flick across to his cheek, down to his split lip and back to his eyes in a second. He gave an elegant sneer. "So, hitting me is alright, you just don't like leaving bruises?"

I stepped forwards, and his flinch backwards told me that his bravado was entirely faked. An obfuscation.

"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." This time, when I stepped forwards he didn't move, just looked at me with accusing, pained eyes.

"I don't care if you're sorry or not. Everyone always says they're sorry." Something unidentifiable flickered across his face now. "I don't even want you to promise it won't happen again." He snorted. "Everyone always says that, too." A new emotion entered his eyes. "I just want to remind you what I do for you. How much I help you. Remind you that I keep you grounded."

Ice trickled down my spine. I knew exactly how much control Blair had over me; just how much the loss of his aid would mean to me.

"So, before something like this happens again, just think – if I leave, you will never be able to find me. You'll never be able to properly tune your senses, not well enough to chase me across the world. And without me, eventually you'll drop into a zone so deep you'll never emerge." His eyes were so hard, so fierce, that I could barely recognise my friend.

The breath was tight in my chest as I looked at him and his final sentence sunk in.

"And if it becomes necessary, I will send you into that zone myself."


	3. Resolution

Minor warning - mentions of domestic abuse, and insufficient disapproval.

= - / _ = - / _= - / _= - / _= - / _= - / _= - / _= - / _= - / _= - / _= - / _= - / _= - / _= - / _

When the world returned from the abyss where Blair's words had taken me, I was alone in his office. After a few minutes of faded colours, the world returned in full bloom, the cool air from an open window making my skin prickle. It hadn't been open before – Blair had obviously left it open to bring me slowly out of my zone. Just another reminder of what he does for me.

My knees ached – I had fallen to the floor at some point, and had knocked them on the hard wood. I used the table to haul myself upright, feeling twice my age.

I staggered to the door, as my legs slowly came back to life. Pulling it open, I peered down the corridor. No one. No students, no teachers. No Sandburg.

Not that I was expecting him to be there.

= - / _ = - / _= - / _= - /

Back at the loft, I collapsed onto the couch. Something was up with Sandburg, and it wasn't just what I'd done, I was sure of that. At least, I hadn't been the original cause. I had seen something in his eyes that went deeper than the fear of me hitting him again. As if that wasn't bad enough.

I let my head drop down onto the back of the chair. The sun was going down, sending a shaft of light through the window. Dust motes caught in the light danced in the air, swirling and eddying and moving…

= - / _ = - / _= - / _= - /

I blinked as the sound of a door shutting drew me from my zone. Dammit! Not only was today a bad day for zones, but Blair wasn't exactly being helpful. That was perfectly understandable, but still.

Stiffened muscles complained as I hauled myself upright. The dust motes that had so distracted me previously were now telling me that Sandburg had just entered his room, but I ignored that for the time being and immersed myself in cooking. Homemade lasagne for two – with a side dish of grovelling, hopefully Sandburg would forgive me.

Forty minutes later, I shoved the meal in the oven and wiped my hands on my apron. Ok, the guy in an apron thing, cliché or what, but I hate knowing there's flour or sauce or whatever on my clothes. I can _see_ it.

Shoving various bowls and implements into the sink to soak, I took off the apron – complete with a splodge of cheese sauce – and placed it over the back of a chair. After I had spent several minutes trying to get it flat, I realised I was procrastinating and pointedly scrumpled it up and threw it on the table.

Outside Sandburg's door, I waited for a few seconds, calming myself much as I had done outside his office. I knocked twice, gently, before slowly pushing the door open.

There was an open bag on the floor – my stomach lurched as my first thought was that Blair was leaving. I scanned the room in an instant, checking for more signs of departure, but there were none, and my gaze finally settled on the man himself.

He was sat on the end of his futon, with a handful of photographs. He seemed to be immersed in them, but something about his body language told me he had heard me knock and enter.

Inside the suitcase, among the debris, was a small box, one lone photograph still in the bottom. It was of Naomi and a handsome man, with a small, blue eyed, curly haired boy between them.

There was a small red sweet in the boy's hand, and another in his mouth. He was holding it in his teeth and showing it to the camera with a broad grin. In the picture, Blair could have been no more than six years old, but the energy was the same as the bouncy, enthusiastic man I usually knew.

"There were three."

"What?" Sandburg's voice startled me out of my reverie.

"There were three men that hit Naomi. There were two others that only hit me." He still hadn't looked up from the photographs in his hand.

"Sandburg… Blair…"

"Each time, when whoever it was hit her, we would just leave, like that. She always told me, that however often they say they're sorry and however often they say they won't do it again, they're not sorry enough to stop." A sigh, and he let the pictures drop to the ground one by one.

Big blue eyes looked up at me, pleading and hard all at the same time. "I can't leave you, Jim. I had to make you sorry enough to never do it again. Please understand."

I nodded mutely, then slowly sat down beside him. His head was hanging again, and he was staring at the pictures where they lay on the floor. Several of them had landed the wrong way up, and I could see the names and dates scrawled on the back. Some didn't have names, others didn't even have dates.

"I made lasagne."

Blair snorted softly. "Guess that's as close to an apology as I'm gonna get."

"I'd apologise, but you know me and words." I slid one arm round his shoulders, holding him close to my side. "Words is your bit."

He snorted again. "Apparently so is grammar."

"You know, that snorting thing really isn't attractive."

This time, he laughed properly. It was only a short bark, but it was there. He sobered again. "Jim… seriously…"

"Yeah, I know. I won't. Ever. You scared me a little, you know that? What with leaving me in your office and all that."

"Hey, man, I left the window open! I knew it'd bring you out of it eventually." Blair tried to pull away, affronted, but I kept my arm around him.

"I didn't mean it like that. I just…" Shaking my head as the words eluded me, I squeezed him tightly to my side before letting go and abruptly standing. "I just didn't realise how much you mean to me. Not the sentinel thing, well that too, but with everything."

"Yeah?"

I held out a hand and hauled him to his feet. "Now come on, you can help me make salad."

"You seriously made lasagne?"

"Yup." I sniffed deeply. "But if we don't hurry up it's going to be takeaway anyway."

Blair dashed through the door before I could. "I can make the salad if you can do the table."

"I don't like how you make salad. You cut the lettuce wrong."

"Tell me, man, _tell_ me you did not just comment on how I cut lettuce." Blair brandished a cucumber at me.

"Hey, if you'd do it right…" A tomato hit me in the forehead. "I refuse to have a food fight." I sniffed. "It's very childish."

I caught the next tomato neatly in my mouth.

Blair pulled a face. "You cheat."

I held it between my teeth and bit into it. The juice I had so carefully aimed at him instead went all over my cheek.

He laughed now, properly. "Serves you right."

There's a pip on my eyelash. Eew.

= - / _ = - / _= - / _= - /

~Finis


End file.
